‘Kung Fu Panda 3’ karate-kicks the competition with $41 million

“Kung Fu Panda 3” showed plenty of power at the USA box office with a solid opening weekend of $41 million at 3,955 theaters as the durable family franchise dominated moviegoing.

“Kung Fu Panda 3” gave 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks animation a big win this weekend.

It’s the first “Kung Fu Panda” installment to open in January instead of the summertime. This may have been due to weak competition in theaters, the holiday surge of awards movies growing stale, a paltry offering of new weekend releases, and a seeming drought of animated films (giving exception to Norm of the North, coined a failure on many different levels). “Kung Fu Panda 3”, which cost at least $140 million to make and was co-produced by Oriental DreamWorks, took in $75 million in its initial release in five foreign markets, including China, the studios said. The 2008 original bowed to $60.2 million and ended its US run with $215 million.

“The Revenant” held onto second place for the third time since its release, bringing in an estimated million and pushing the Oscar heavyweight to a $274 million worldwide total.

Fourth was The Finest Hours, a rescue-at-sea drama that made an estimated US$10.3 million on its debut weekend.

Rounding out the rest 10 most-popular movies in the United States this weekend were “The Finest Hours” (10.3 million dollars), “Ride Along 2” (8.3 million), “The Boy” (7.9 million), “Dirty Grandpa” (7.6 million), “The 5th Wave” (7 million), “Fifty Shades of Black” (6.2 million) and “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” (6 million).

“The Revenant” came in at No. 2 and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” at No. 3.

Gavin O’Connor’s Jane Got a Gun, starring Natalie Portman opposite Joel Edgerton and Ewan McGregor was DOA. Industry watchers are speculating that DWA’s latest film will even top the all-time animation record set by Monkey King: Hero Is Back past year, at $153 million. The film has got 895.4 million dollars in total ticket sales in North America.